romney will repeal that. ryan says that too. it looked to me like that was working, that they were actually managing to sort of get to the president's left on medicare and attack him and say the president's going to cut your medicare, we're going to protect it. i don't know why it's not still working. >> here's why. so they've decided they're going to pick this fight on medicare. it's a bizarre fight they picked for the reasons you named. clearly they're the party that wants to shrink the entitlement state. you have to see what they say behind closed doors or read conservative blogs. we know what the conservative apparatus in the republican party thinks about the entitlement state. they want to say we're going to be more extravagant to you seniors. they made the mistake of picking a fight on an issue that the democrats have reputational capital built up over time. it's not sustainable. if democrats went out and convinced them that they were the party that would give tax cuts to the rich, it would not be possible. it's not credib